With a concentrated shove of magic, Woolly forced Amelie into motion, guiding her up the stairs to her bedroom where she slammed the door behind her.
Needing a stronger connection to Woolly, I picked out a spot free of debris then slid my back down the wall to sit on the porch, stroking the boards with my fingertips, wishing there was some better way to lessen the sting.
“We’re going to be okay,” I promised her. “We’ve still got each other.”
A cool wind sighed through the eaves, and the house moaned around me.
Shards of glass shimmered on the weathered planks like tears, and mine glided down my nose to mingle with hers.
Short of losing Maud, I had never hurt so much in my life.
Hours slipped through my fingers while Woolly and I grieved together. I stared across the lawn at the pinkening sky, waiting on the sun to rise so I could proclaim this miserable night over and done.
When the first rays of a new day caressed my face, the light touch was a benediction.
In embracing the new day, I accepted my new reality.
I had enemies. Ones I had earned and not inherited. Life had just gotten that much more complicated.
The Master, always so careful with me, had lost his patience. The Marchands, who might have proven to be advantageous allies, had declared themselves my enemies. And I had as good as killed my own cousin.
A hot sting behind my eyes warned the tank wasn’t on empty yet, and yep, fresh tears snaked down my cheeks to drip onto my shirt.
A throat cleared from some distance away.
Lashes gloopy and mashed together, I forced my eyes open.
Linus stood in the grass near the steps, hands shoved into his pockets. “Is there anything I can do? For either of you?”
Woolly’s consciousness stirred itself to drift down the steps toward him, and he must have felt the viscosity in the air. He reached out a hand, his palm facing up in supplication, and she enveloped him to the wrist in magic before tugging him slowly to where I sat. As if that small effort had been too much when she had already grieved so hard, she winked out and left me alone with him.
“I think she just gave you her blessing.” I patted the planks beside me. “Join me?”
Moving carefully, he lowered himself beside me, his gaze darting around like he expected Woolly to change her mind and expel him into the garden. “How did she take the news?”
“About as well as expected.” I let my head fall back as sleep tugged on my limbs. “She popped every bulb in the house as far as I can tell, and that’s only what I can see from out here.”
He angled his head toward me. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m…” Leaning forward, I pinched a jagged sliver of glass between my fingers then held it glinting in the sunlight. “The part of me that believed in happily-ever-afters and true love triumphing against all odds is crushed to learn sometimes you fall in love with a prince who is actually a frog.” I didn’t fight Linus when he took the sharp point from my fingers before I cut myself. “Mostly I’m glad I can stop wondering.”
“About?”
“How he kisses, how he tastes, all the stupid things I always wanted to know.” It made me pathetic to admit it, but I hoped Linus wouldn’t hold it against me. “I got to be his for a little while, and he got to be mine. It’s what I always wanted, and I got to experience it. That makes me lucky, right? Not pathetic?”
Linus stretched his arm across my shoulders, and I curled against his side, resting my head on his chest.
Exhaustion tugged on me, leading me down a path I hated to follow but was helpless to resist.
“That makes you very lucky,” he murmured. “Not all of us get to know how that feels.”
Maybe Boaz was right. Maybe I was a masochist. Maybe pain was how I coped.
Or maybe I just wanted to sit here and ache with someone who understood how even the ends of your hair hurt when you pined for someone who either didn’t—or couldn’t—reciprocate. “I saw your office.”
“Meiko?”
“Meiko.”
“You’ve been my muse for a long time,” he admitted, his heart thudding faster under my cheek.
The sketchbook Boaz had stolen from him when we were kids proved his words. “Why me?”
“You’re not the only one allowed to carry a torch for the unobtainable ideal.”
“That almost sounds romantic.” I felt bad about wiping snot on his shirt now. “I had no clue.” A yawn cracked my jaw that I muffled against him. “You never said a word.”
“You had your heart set on Boaz.” His cool fingers stroked down my arm. “You always have.”
“Hearts are stupid.” I fisted his shirt as my damp lashes kissed my cheeks and stayed there. “Life would have been easier if I had fallen for you.”
As blessed darkness swirled away my consciousness, my breaths growing longer and slower, he brushed his cool lips against my temple and whispered, so soft I might have imagined it, “There’s still time.”